THE MAIN Irish unit of US semiconductor company Xilinx, which is making more than a quarter of its 400 staff in Dublin redundant, has paid out dividends exceeding $1.8 billion (€1.36 billion) to its parent in the past decade.

The elimination of 130 jobs from Xilinx’s plant at Citywest in the next nine months underscores acute pressure on some of Ireland’s most profitable multinational investors.

The company has been in business here since 1995. In an effort to “ensure” its competitiveness, jobs from its manufacturing, assembly, testing and administration functions in Dublin will move to an operation in Singapore.

Recent Companies Office filings for Xilinx Ireland show that the business had revenues last year of €583.26 million and pretax profits of €212.08 million.

Although revenues fell 9.9 per cent, the pretax profit margin increased fractionally to 36.4 per cent from 35.4 per cent.

The same filings show that Xilinx Ireland paid out dividends of $200 million last year. This was in addition to dividends of $274 million in 2007, $250 million in 2006, $363.13 million in 2005 and 2004, and $111 million in 2003.

It also paid dividends of $53.9 million in 2002, $42.45 million in 2001, $133.7 million in 2000 and $25.66 million in 1999.

“In those same accounts, you will see contributions over the years in respect of payroll and taxes paid,” said a spokesman for Xilinx Ireland.

“You would also be aware that the company’s investment in its facilities in Ireland amounts to over €125 million.”

Companies Office filings show that the Irish company paid €19.15 million in corporate taxes in 2008 and €19.61 million in 2007.

Xilinx appears to have been a beneficiary in the middle of the decade of tax incentives introduced by former US president George W Bush, designed to encourage the repatriation of multinational profits into the US.

The American Jobs Creation Act was part of an effort to encourage US companies to use the returned funds to create domestic jobs.

According to the legislation, the funds were to be used for research and development, capital expansion or mergers and acquisitions in the US market.

For a period of one year, the law allowed US companies to repatriate earnings of their foreign subsidiaries at a reduced tax rate of 5.35 per cent, down from the maximum corporate tax rate of 35 per cent.

Figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), a division of the US commerce department, suggest that US firms moved hugely profitable activities into Ireland as corporation tax was gradually cut to 12.5 per cent in 2003 from 38 per cent in early 1997.

The latest data, for 2005, shows that the Irish operations of American firms made net profits of $48 billion in 2005. In that year, the profitability of US subsidiaries in Ireland is second in Europe only to the Dutch units of US firms.

The BEA figures, gleaned from mandatory legal filings, show that combined net profit of US corporations in Ireland was $8.58 billion in 1997.

It rose to $13.39 billion by 2000 and reached $31.3 billion in 2003.